


before, during, after

by magicianprince



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, probably does not fit exactly right with canon timeline, sometime after DA2 but before DA:I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3583737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicianprince/pseuds/magicianprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke has no idea where they are on a map, aside from the firm knowledge that it is Not Kirkwall. “Let’s go up into the mountains for a bit—no one will find us there,” he’d said the week before, and he hadn’t been wrong, exactly, since it’s he and Fenris who’ve stumbled across the tiny village by accident, rather than the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before, during, after

The townspeople regard them with hushed excitement.

Fenris fidgets beside him. Hawke has no idea where they are on a map, aside from the firm knowledge that it is Not Kirkwall. “Let’s go up into the mountains for a bit—no one will find us there,” he’d said the week before, and he hadn’t been wrong, exactly, since it’s he and Fenris who’ve stumbled across the tiny village by accident, rather than the other way around. Dangerous to stay, maybe, but Hawke is tired enough of wandering around the wilderness that one night doesn’t seem any more risky than sleeping outside.

No one recognizes them. News of Hawke and Fenris hasn’t reached this village, probably on account of it being in the middle of nowhere. It isn’t hard to imagine that they never _will_ know who Hawke and Fenris are, though Hawke knows there’s little chance of these people remaining in the dark forever. Whatever their future holds, they speak the same language and what Hawke presumes is the village elder or something (going off her air of authority and silver hair) smiles genuinely when she comes out to greet them. 

“What do you call this place?” Hawke asks her, after he and Fenris have accepted her offer of shelter for a night or two. 

“Welhelm,” she replies.

“What should we call you?” asks Fenris. 

“Ava,” she tells him. She turns to the villagers gathered behind her. “Is there anyone able to assist them?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it, we’re used to roughing it,” Hawke assures her hastily, not even sure what he and Fenris are going to be assisted with. A young girl with wide brown eyes and dark black hair pulled back into a ponytail steps forward, wiping her palms on her pants.

“Take them to the main house,” Ava instructs her. “They can stay in the second room upstairs.”

Fenris and Hawke follow the girl up past three houses so small Hawke almost mistakes them for sheds and into a larger wooden building streaked even browner with mud. It’s sort of surreal, to be around so many people again—and since when did a tiny village become _so many people_?—after so steadfastly avoiding them.

He doesn’t know how Fenris feels, but he’s _missed_ people.

:

“What’s your name?” Hawke asks, trying to sound kind. He speaks up mostly because it feels awkward to be standing off to the side while a child neither he nor Fenris know piles blankets onto the bed they’ll be staying in tonight.

The girl puts what appear to be final touches on the bed, fluffing up the pillows, as she answers: “I don’t have one yet. I’m eleven.”

Hawke and Fenris exchange a confused glance.

“Ava will back soon,” she continues, and then ducks her head and all but runs out, slamming the door closed behind her.

“Is she saying that eleven is her name?” Hawke asks Fenris as the footsteps on the stairs grow farther away and then stop altogether.

“No, I don’t think so,” Fenris replies.

“Let’s ask Ava when we see her again,” says Hawke decisively. 

Fenris catches his wrist, tugs Hawke into his space, kisses him before Hawke can even think of making a sound. “Thank you for taking us somewhere indoors,” he murmurs against Hawke’s mouth. Hawke kisses him again, just because for now they have the leisure to kiss as much as they like. “I was growing tired of having cold feet.”

Hawke frowns. “Well, if you would just wear _shoes_ ,” he begins, but understandably shuts up when Fenris raises one dark eyebrow and slides his hand from Hawke’s jaw and into the increasingly unruly tangle of Hawke’s hair.

:

Ava announces her arrival with a sharp, concise knock on the door. Hawke untangles himself from the softness of Fenris’ kisses and affection and opens the door to let her in.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Fenris says, polite in a way that Hawke too often forgets to be. Ava only nods.

“If it’s not rude to ask, what’s the name of the girl who set up the room for us?” Hawke questions her.

“She doesn’t have one yet,” Ava says. “It’s nothing to concern yourself over. Call her Ari.”

Fenris frowns, intrigued. “Would you mind explaining?” 

“It’s an old tradition. Children don’t have names until they are twelve years old, and they pick them themselves, or ask me for one if they’re uncertain. Until then they have placeholders. ‘Ari’ is for the oldest child in the village.”

“Doesn’t that get confusing?” Hawke asks.

“Sometimes,” Ava says, not impatiently. “But there are times when, if a child has picked a name before their twelfth birthday, they tell it to the people closest to them, who use it in private. We all get used to the switch quickly.”

Fenris and Hawke, silent, contemplate the new information.

“Well,” Hawke says, not sure how to best respond. “For now, is there anything you all need help with? Like doing laundry, or chopping firewood, or simply having two handsome fellows around…?”

:

For better or for worse, Ava needs more than just two fellows to be handsome. 

“It’s like being back home again,” Hawke announces, “except there I had far more people who wanted me dead.”

He’s just come back to the main square from helping with laundry by the river; someone’s shirt had come loose off of the line and begun floating downstream. Naturally, Hawke had leapt into the river without a second thought to go get it and returned sopping wet from head to toe. If only the citizens of Kirkwall could see their Champion now.

“With the way you’ve been tugged around, I can hardly tell whether you’re a dog-lord or a dog,” Fenris agrees, the corner of his mouth crooking up into a smile. While Hawke has been tugged pretty much everywhere in order to help with everything, Fenris has been left to his own devices, drifting around and helping with whatever work he feels like. Currently, he is seated outside of someone’s home with Ari, mixing a huge batch of a poultice of some sort, fingers stained with streaks of brown, gold, red. Ari, concentrated on her work, doesn’t look up.

“Oh, ha, ha, very original,” Hawke replies, grinning. He sits down and jostles Fenris’ shoulder with his own halfheartedly, dampening Fenris’ clothing. “If I’m a dog, where does that leave you?”

“Smelling like wet mabari, I’d imagine,” Fenris drawls, staring pointedly at the slowly spreading splotch of water on his shirt.

Hawke leans closer, narrowing his eyes in mischief. “You should know better than anyone that I haven’t smelled like wet mabari in at _least_ —oh, excuse me,” he says as the elderly woman who has apparently been lingering in front of them clears her throat. Fenris coughs into his fist to try and hide a laugh; Hawke nudges their shoulders together once more before standing in order to hear the woman’s request.

:

Finding Fenris after their last exchange proves difficult. Hawke’s been roped into fixing someone’s table—or rather, holding it still as instructed while someone else fixes it—and Fenris and Ari are gone from their previous haunt. After he escapes table repair duty, he finally finds Fenris behind the main house, absolutely covered in excited children and looking slightly lost but happy for it. Ari stands close by, and it’s impossible to mistake the look of open admiration on her face for anything else. Hawke can sympathize. He can’t stop staring either, though for different reasons. 

Years and years, he’s known Fenris, been beside him and protected him and been protected, and yet he’s never seen Fenris around children. The realization is strange. Gooey adoration wells up in his stomach.

“They’re lyrium,” Fenris is telling the little group crowding up to him, who listens with rapt attention. 

“What are they for?” A boy inquires. An unknowingly loaded question, but Fenris seems to take it in stride.

“Well, they…glow?” he says, a vast understatement. Hawke almost snorts.

“Show us,” the same boy demands, and when the rest of the throng takes up the words as a chant, Hawke decides that it’s time to swoop in and play the savior.

“Seems you’ve gained a few fans,” Hawke calls as he draws nearer, unable to keep the pleased tone out of his voice.

Fenris barks a short laugh. “Perhaps,” he says.

The children, including Ari, disperse, leaving the two of them alone. Fenris looks at him fondly. Hawke wishes, not for the first time, that he had more to offer someone who so freely gives him looks like that even after all they’ve been through.

Fenris steps closer and takes both of Hawke’s hands in his own, oblivious to Hawke’s pang of uncertainty. 

“They said they were afraid of me,” he tells Hawke, running his thumbs over Hawke’s knuckles carefully, “but then they saw how we made each other laugh.”

:

Hawke’s hesitation follows him back to their room like a persistent cold. He watches as Fenris settles onto the bed, seeming more relaxed than he has in a long time. Fenris would follow him anywhere in this world and into the next, Hawke knows. The knowledge is sometimes overwhelming.

“Fenris,” he starts to say.

Someone knocks lightly at the door. Hawke curses himself for feeling relieved. Fenris gets up and unlatches the lock; when the door swings open, it reveals Ari, squaring her shoulders as if to steel herself. Hawke examines the nervous look on her face apprehensively, but all she does is lean up in order to whisper something in Fenris’ ear. He bends obligingly for her, and that same sticky-warm feeling Hawke had been having earlier that day watching Fenris play nice with kids arrives back in full force. For all the joking he does, it’s only Fenris who can make him feel truly silly. That’s love, Hawke supposes.

After hearing whatever it is that Ari has to say, Fenris turns back to Hawke. “She…wants to talk to me.”

Hawke sighs dramatically and stands. “Kicking me out of my own room? Kids these days.”

“It’s ok,” Ari blurts out. “You can stay!”

Waving his hand dismissively, Hawke offers her a reassuring smile. “I’ll be downstairs.”

And so downstairs he goes. Ava is knitting at the table, surprisingly deft for how dim the light from the fire is where she’s sitting. Hawke expects the shadows thrown over her features to make her appear older, wiser, but she seems the same as when he first laid eyes on her.

“Who’s that for?” he asks. Attempting to be polite, he pulls out a chair across from her and settles in.

Ava shrugs. “Whoever wants it,” she replies.

Hawke watches the fire for a few drawn-out moments. Eventually, he takes a deep breath. “Do you know what Ari wanted to talk to Fenris about?”

“She wants a name.”

“I…” Hawke’s brow furrows. “Isn’t that your job? Head of the village, and all?”

“Asking me for a name isn’t a rule set in stone. She’s allowed to ask whoever she wants.”

“And that doesn’t offend you?” 

“No,” Ava says, knitting needles clinking together softly, matching the hushed tone of the conversation. “We don’t have visitors often, and for the two of you to arrive so soon before she chooses her name? Perhaps it was simply meant to be.” 

“What happens if someone takes a name in the moment, but doesn’t like it later?”

Ava looks up at him. “They change it,” she replies, and returns to her yarn and to the flickering firelight of the evening.

:

They sit in silence until first Ari and then Fenris, close behind, come downstairs. Fenris waits by the steps as Hawke rises and goes to him, and they return to their room quietly when Ari is gone once again. Hawke can’t help but notice the way Fenris keeps staring down at the floor, subdued somehow.

“Are you all right?” he decides to check.

“Yes,” Fenris replies truthfully, meeting Hawke’s eyes. Hawke relaxes and waits for explanation, but Fenris only sits down and resumes gazing at the floor. 

Trying to occupy himself, Hawke relocates his attention to their belongings, sorting through them. Making sure that what little they have is still there has become a sort of before-bed ritual; he has no reason to distrust Ava or Ari, but handling familiar cloth and trinkets soothes his mind. He’s rolling a small mabari totem in his hand thoughtfully when Fenris speaks up. 

“I gave her—” Fenris clears his throat. “I gave her my old name.”

Hawke slips the mabari totem into his pocket and looks at Fenris carefully. “I wasn’t aware that you were still holding on to it.”

Fenris huffs out a frustrated sigh. “I wasn’t _holding on to it_ , I just…I don’t know,” he grumbles, and does that thing where he retreats to the opposite side of the room from Hawke so that he can brood in relative privacy, sitting with his back against the wall and closing his eyes.

Generally, Hawke allows him his space, but now is one of those times he feels like he has to push. Fenris doesn’t look up as Hawke settles down on the floor beside him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that—you can talk to me about anything, Fenris.”

“I know,” Fenris says, and then sighs again. “It was something…I could give. She asked for so little, just a name, and it was something I could give her. And I somehow…feel better, now that it will no longer be a name that belonged to a Tevinter slave. It will be a name for a girl living in freedom, surrounded by family. If she ever grows to dislike it, she can discard it. It will be hers to let go.”

“Would you want to do that? Change your name?”

“No,” Fenris laughs. “I’m stuck with the one I have now, for better or for worse. Still, it’s a nice thought, that I could simply—pick another one, if I wished.” 

He turns and crooks a smile at Hawke, who takes his hand and presses his mouth to the back of Fenris’ palm, just once.

“I’ll call you anything you like, at any time,” Hawke promises. “Excluding swear words, mind you. We’re not around children much, but if the past day has proven anything, it’s that there will certainly be times I have to keep my mouth clean. A pity.”

“Truly. Is your mouth ever clean, Hawke?”

“Only when I want something,” Hawke says, leaning in suggestively.

Fenris rolls his eyes and allows himself to be kissed.

:

They stay for another day (a rare indulgence, for both of them) before gathering their meager belongings together and going to bid farewell to Ava. Ari is nowhere to be seen.

“I’m sorry,” Fenris says at the door to the main house, awkward under Ava’s ever-piercing gaze. Hawke squeezes his hand. “We don’t have much money to pay you.”

“Keep your money,” Ava replies. “You have paid with your work and with Ari’s name. Keep safe on your journey, and any debt between is no more.”

“Has she told you her name, or is she keeping up an air of mystery?” Hawke asks, curious.

Ava shakes her head. “She has not told me, but I will know, soon enough.”

:

Hawke and Fenris are just barely out of the village when Ari catches up with them, grabbing onto Fenris’ sleeve.

“Safe journey, Hawke, Fenris,” she says.

“Take care of yourself,” Hawke replies with a smile, receiving a small one from her in return. 

Hawke hopes that she’ll do well here. He hopes that she has ample time before the weight of the world catches up to her, wonders when he grew up so much that being her age seems like another lifetime. Today, he and Fenris begin their trip up and over the mountains; Ari will stay here, turning twelve, revealing her name, remembering Fenris every time someone calls out for her. Remembering Fenris.

Fenris bends down and ruffles her hair. “Goodbye, Leto,” he says, soft, as if unused to the shape of the words in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading :')


End file.
